Avantis + Dante V3 + DVS: No signal

[rollick]

I need help with Avantis + Dante V3 + Dante Virtual Soundcard.
Actually, I have two problems with this setup, but to keep things separated, I’ll make one post per problem.

This problem is about playing multitracks from a Windows PC via Dante back to Avantis (virtual soundcheck).
I can’t get ANY signal on the Avantis console.

Afte struggling for days, I have reduced my setup to the simplest possible:

• A windows PC with Reaper, Dante Virtual Soundcard and Dante Controller
• Avantis (“duo”) with a 64x64 Dante V3 card in slot 2
• The PC is connected directly to the primary port on the Dante card. No switch in between and therefore no DHCP server on the “network”.

Dante Controller finds both devices: The A&H Dante card and DVS, both with self-assigned IP addresses (APIPA). Both devices are set to 96k sample rate. See screenshot #1.
Routing in Dante controller is 1-1 from the PC (called TROMMERUM) as transmitter to A&H Dante as receiver. All channel subscriptions are green. See screenshot 2.
The A&H Dante card is clock leader.
So far so good.

Reaper is configured to use DVS ASIO device and my tracks are routed to Dante tx1, Dante tx2, etc. Unfortunately, I don’t have a screenshot of that right now.
Reaper selects 96k sample rate from the ASIO configuration.

On the Avantis console, I have patched I/O Port 2 ch1 to input ch36. See screenshot #3.
When playing the tracks in Reaper, I would expect signal on Avantis ch36, but it is completely dead.
The goal is to use the Virtual Soundcheck function in the Avantis console, so I have also patched 1-1 from I/O Port 2 ch1 to Avantis input ch1, I/O Port 2 ch2 to Avantis input ch2 etc. on the virtual soundcheck screen. Again, I don’t have a screenshot of that right now.
When activating virtual soundcheck, there is absolutely no signal on any of the 22 input channels that are played from Reaper.

What am I doing wrong here?
How do I determine whether this is a Reaper issue? A Dante network issue or an Avantis issue?

A Reaper issue?
In Reaper I have switched to another ASIO device (Motu) and set up equivalent routing. Tracks are playing fine with signal on the Motu. So I expect my Routing to be correct.
I have tried with Harrison LiveTrax as well. Importing my tracks, setting up to play on ASIO DVS. Everything seems fine, but absolutely no signal on the Avantis. That was my first experience with LiveTrax, so I may have missed something.
All in all, I don’t think Reaper is the issue here.

An Avantis issue?
I have tried switching Avantis’ audio sync from Internal to I/O Port 2. It didn’t help, so I switched back.
Avantis was on firmware 1.31 and I have upgraded to 1.32. It didn’t help.
The Dante V3 card was on firmware 1.01 and I have upgraded to 1.02. It didn’t help.
I don’t have any other Dante devices to test with.

A Dante network issue?
As far as I can tell, everything seems fine in Dante Controller.
As Avantis and the PC are on their own “dedicated network” by being directly connected by a single ethernet cable, no foreign devices or network traffic can interfere with the Dante traffic.
I don’t know how to troubleshoot further on this part of the setup.

Actually, my 22 tracks in Reaper were recorded from this console with this Dante card, so something must have been working. However, I was not the one doing the recording and it was done on another PC. The guy who did it is not available for the time being. The 22 tracks were recorded as tie lines from the stage inputs (S-Link) to the DVS on his PC.

To test further, I have a microphone plugged in to Avantis local input socket 1 and patched it to input ch49.
In the I/O screen I have set up a tie line from Avantis local input socket 1 (the microphone) to I/O Card 2 output ch1 (the Dante V3 card).
In Dante Controller I have routed A&H Dante output ch1 (transmitter) to DVS input ch1 (receiver).
In a Reaper session with one track, routed from Dante rx1 and armed, I do not see any signal at all.
Looking at Dante Controller’s device view, the small speaker icon lights up on A&H Dante transmit ch1, when I speak in the microphone. So the Dante network does actually see a signal from the Avantis.
In this scenario, I would also expect the small speaker icon on DVS input ch1 to light up, but it doesn’t. See screenshot #4.

My head is about to explode. I really can’t see, what I am doing wrong here.

I tried switching the DVS from ASIO to WDM. It only lets me use very few channels, but in this mode I actually got signal from the microhone on Avantis input socket 1 to Reaper! The audio had a lot of clicks and pops, bot audio was actually passing through the network.
So, are all my issues related to ASIO problems?

My PC is old and running Windows 7. That’s why DVS is version 4.3.1.1 (newer versions don’t support Windows 7).
I have tried on a newer PC running Windows 10 and the latest version of DVS, but I have exactly the same issues with that PC.

I really don’t know how to proceed.
Can you help me?

[jyradelix]

I’d start simpler. Set DVS to use WDM and then set DVS as your Windows sound output. That should give stereo out to DVS 1-2 (or whatever you select). Route that to Avantis. If that works then you know your Avantis is OK and the issue is Reaper. I’ve done VS via DVS and the v3 card plenty and it usually works fine for me, barring network hiccups, still this sounds like a config issue.

Do you have a second machine you could put a temp DVS license on? Since your Avantis can be clock leader, you can route DVS to DVS (I believe). This might give you a chance to check Reaper.

[sic0048]

There are multiple places where you need to ensure the audio is routed correctly - in the console, in Dante Controller, and in Reaper.

I suspect you haven’t set up audio routing in Reaper correctly. By default, Reaper will send a stereo mix of all the tracks to output 1&2. You have to manually go into each track and delete this routing (unless you really want it for some reason) and manually add a “Dante Output” (either stereo or mono). At the same time, you should also check to make sure that each track has an appropriate Dante input assigned to the track. Again, this does not happen by default.

[rollick]

@jyradelix, thanks for the WDM suggestion. I had a little more success, but still not there.

When running DVS in WDM mode, I achieved the foloowing.

1. Avantis local input socket 1 (microphone) patched to input ch49 AND patched as Ip Direct Out to Dante card ch1 (and to ch3 just for fun).
2. Dante Controller shows that A&H Dante card is transmitting on ch1 and ch3. It also shows that DVS is receiving on ch1 and ch3. See screenshot #5.
3. Reaper sees audio signal on armed track and I can record. Routing shown in screenshot #6.

This is where the fun ends.

4. When playing back the recorded track, Dante Controller shows signal on DVS transmit ch1, but no signal on Dante card receive ch1 - and obviously no signal on the Avantis. See screenshot #7. Reaper routing shown on screenshot #6.

Instead of using Reaper, I have tried the same steps using Windows sound playback and recording. The result is the same: Signal from the microphone on Avantis local socket 1 is visible on Windows recording device ch1 and audible in the PC speaker when I enable ‘listen to this device’. Playing back Windows test sound on DVS Transmit 1-2 shows signal on the Windows device and in Dante Controller DVS transmit ch1 and ch2, but Dante card receive shows no signal on ch1 or ch2.

I tend to think my issues are in the Dante software/PC setup.
The steps above leads me to believe I have done things right on the console and in Reaper.

[rollick]

I have repeated the WDM steps but using DVS in ASIO mode instead.
In this mode I can’t even get signal into Reaper.
Dante Controller shows signal on Dante card transmit ch1 and ch3, but no signal on DVS receive ch1 or ch3.

@Brian, you suggested that my Reaper routing was bad. I don’t think so. I have shown my routing on screenshot #8.
When playing my 22 Reaper tracks back, I have no signal on my Avantis. If I switch Reaper to my USB-connected Allen & Heath SQ5 (still ASIO mode), with the same routing, all channels are received on the SQ5 and everything is great.
Luckily Reaper maintains routing so that tracks routed to DVS channels are mapped to SQ5 channels instead.

One thing puzzles me: When 22 tracks are playing in Reaper, Dante Controller shows signal ONLY on DVS transmit ch1. No signal on ch2-ch32. That’s weird! Any ideas?

[steffenromeiss]

Did you ever used the patch matrix in Dante Controller?
What is it showing?

[rollick]

@SteffenR, please see screenshot #2 in my original post.

[steffenromeiss]

I mean after your changes?
Need to be more precise next time.
Can you show the actual state?

[rollick]

I really appreciate all your help.

@SteffenR, I have attached screenshots of the routing in Dante Controller.
At this point I’m using WDM mode. 16 channels routed from DVS to A&H Dante and 4 channels routed in the oppsite direction. See screenshot #9.
This has been the routing for all my WDM tests.

[sic0048]

Just a couple of things to check. I have no idea if either one is part of the problem or not…

1. You have not posted your Avantis I/O routing for the Virtual Soundcheck option. The only screenshot you have posted with the Avantis routing has been for the regular channel inputs. When you “turn on” virtual soundcheck, it stops using this regular input routing and instead switched over to the routing on the Virtual Soundcheck routing tab. If you have not set up any routing on this VSC tab, you aren’t going to get anything into the console.

2. I don’t use that “routing view” in Reaper, so it’s not something I’m familiar enough to tell if something is wrong. I usually look at the individual track routing by pressing the “routing” button on the track. That pulls up a routing window for just that track. I know by default, Reaper will output all of the tracks combined into a two channel audio mix on outputs 1&2. I will manually “uncheck” that routing option (there is no way to delete it) and then manually add whatever actual output I want to use. It appears your Reaper routing is correct, but again I am not familiar enough with that particular screen to say for sure.

[rollick]

Well, I sort of found the problem.
Thank you all for helping me!

As @jyradelix suggested, I installed DVS on another PC, although I had to buy a 30-day license because I already used my trial license some time ago.
On that PC everything worked perfectly and all my routing in Reaper, Dante Controller and the Avantis was correct.

I wrote in my very first post that I tried on aother PC and had the same issues with that PC. Obviously, that can’t be the case, so I must have made another mistake back then.

Anyway, Reaper, DVS and A&H Dante works fine on another Windwows 10 PC (called LENOVO). With that setup I noticed the Latency tab in Dante Controller’s device view. It showed reasonable latencies around 1.7 ms.
At this point I realized what the real problem with the Windows 7 PC was: LATENCY. Dante Controller showed more than 2000 ms latency!!!
For some reason I hadn’t paid attention to latency, but with 2000 ms latency, all packets are skipped by the receiver (according to Audinate).
See screenshot 10.

I guess 2000 ms isn’t even an exact latency measurement, but it shows that something is seriously wrong with that PC.
I worked my way through Audinate’s suggestions (Troubleshooting High Latency On Windows Machines | Dante) but LatencyMon did not show any issues.
Sweetwater has a guide and I tried several things there, but nothing changed. My Firewire(IEEE1394) card for an old Motu device wasn’t the problem either.

So in the end I upgraded my PC to Windows 10. Not a re-install, just an in-place upgrade. It did not change anything.
But now running Windows 10, I was able to use the newest DVS version, and THAT DID THE TRICK.
Now everything works as I originally expected.
The only possible explanation is that DVS version 4.3.1.1 (which Audinate Customer Support recommended for Windows 7) does not work properly on my Windows 7 PC.
Now I just have to buy a Windows 10 license to activate my upgraded PC.

Along the way, I also learned a few other things:

A “real” Dante device must exist in the Dante network, eg. the Avantis Dante card. Two DVSs can’t connect to each other on their own because neither can be clock leader. When I turn on the Avantis, the two DVSs can sync to the Avantis Dante card and the two DVSs can transmit to each other.

Avantis Virtual Soundcheck does not turn off all other patching. It only overrides the patching needed for VS.
In my example, I have patched 32 channels 1-1 between the Dante I/O slot and the input channels (screenshot 11). I also had Dante ch1 patched to input ch36 (screenshot 3).
When VS is active, Dante ch1 is patched to input ch1 as defined in the VS patch screen and Dante ch1 is also patched to input ch36.